COVID19 Update-November 12

President Joan Lescinski, CSJ, PhD, emailed the following message to students:

Dear Students:

The continuing increase of COVID-19 cases in the community and on campus will force us to extend last week's decision to convert most undergraduate and graduate classes to distance delivery learning through the remainder of fall semester. We also will suspend face-to-face extracurricular activities, including most athletic events and practices, until further notice.

We regret having to make this decision, but the safety of students, employees and the wider community must be our first priority. We are proud to have come so close to completing the on-campus portion of our fall semester as scheduled, and are grateful to the students, faculty and staff whose commitment to safe behaviors helped us in that mission.

We very much look forward to resuming a modified spring semester schedule with face-to-face and hybrid instruction and adjusted extracurricular activities starting on January 25.

Residence halls will remain open to all students through 6 p.m. on November 24. Some students may remain in residence halls to quarantine or isolate beyond November 24. Other students also may remain with Residence Life approval. Support services, including meal delivery, will continue for isolating students now and beyond Thanksgiving.

Meal service for all other students with meal plans will continue through November 24 on a Grab-and-Go basis.

All students concerned about exposing high-risked family members to the virus have an option to self-quarantine on campus through the 24th and/or be tested for the virus.

The following exceptions will continue to apply to distance-delivery learning:

• Some laboratory courses, with the approval of the Dean, may take place in the classroom, with the appropriate protective equipment required.
• Students on internships, clinical coursework, and student-teaching assignments should continue to participate in such experiences following the directions of the department and the placement site.

Thank you again to those who kept the Bee Safe, Bee Responsible Promise and did their best to cooperate with support staff to ensure the health and safety of the entire campus community. I ask that each of you pray for breakthroughs in efforts to create a vaccine in the coming weeks and months, and to lessen the virus threat through spring semester.

I, in turn, will pray for each of you, for your health, your safety and a successful academic conclusion to your semester in early December.

Sincerely,
Sister Joan